More from the Fluff Festival that I went to last week... As I mentioned in my previous Fluff post, a bunch of us met up and went to the Independent, a bar next door to where the Fluff Festival was. They had a bunch of especially Fluffy bar and menu choices. In case you were thinking of having your own Fluff party at home, here are a couple recipes that we tried at the Independent to get you started:

Fluff Royale: Pour a shot of Creme de Cassis into a wine glass, pour Champagne over it until it's about halfway full. It doesn't matter what kind of Champagne you use because it will be mostly overpowered by the cassis anyway. Then spoon a dollop of Fluff on top. The Fluff will react with the Champagne and get all fizzy and expand to the top of the glass (see pic above).

Apple Fluffernutter Sandwich: To make this gourmet Fluffwich, get two slices of fresh sourdough bread, spread a layer of peanut butter and a layer of cream cheese on one piece of bread, top with a layer of thinly sliced macintosh apples, and then spread a layer of fluff on the other piece of bread and put it all together. For added effect, you can toast the bread beforehand.

Not one, but two chocolate desserts found their way onto a plate right in front of me this week:

Pots de Creme at The Beehive: I've been wanting to check out The Beehive ever since it opened in Boston's South End a couple months ago. The space is theatrical and cavernous, full of velvet and exposed brick (pic above). We liked it a lot there, at least until the music started... which was great, but it ended our conversation pretty much instantly. Thankfully, by that point, dessert had arrived and we just focused our attention on the earthenware crock of chocolate pot de creme in front of us. A bit of a twist on the smallish "pot" that this French dessert usually arrives in, the Beehive's version seemed pretty huge in comparison (though it's not like it was that big, just bigger than the norm - and anyway, we were sharing it between the two of us). After an exhaustive search through a mountain of homemade, barely sweetened whipped cream sprinkled with nutmeg (don't get me wrong, the whipped cream was fabulous... there was just a little too much of it), we found the chocolate part of the dessert. It was dense, stiff, and rich - much stiffer than classic pots de creme. The chocolate flavor was intense but not bitter at all, on the sweet side with notes of caramel.

Cocoa Bean Souffle at Oleana: Oleana is one of my favorite restaurants. Last night, four of us sat outdoors at a little table in their beautiful enclosed garden. We ended a really delicious dinner with a frozen cocoa bean souffle with a cocoa hazelnut tartlet topped with cocoa sherbet. We paired it with a late harvest Cabernet Sauvignon by Coturri Winery in Sonoma Valley. It was incredibly interesting - an exploration of the vast flavors and textures of the cacao bean. The souffle was mild and gentle on the palette, yet it had a lot of flavor. The smoothness of the souffle was a big contrast to the extremely crunchy, lively texture of the tartlet, which was intense and explosive. And the sherbet was just barely sweet, a little bitter, and had a focused, even, deep cacao flavor. Overall, the dessert made a pretty good pairing with the Cabernet, which was rich and port-like, though the souffle got somewhat overpowered and would have been better with a gentler, airier wine.

The Spotted Apron is a very cute bakery & cafe that opened in Boston's Beacon Hill around a month ago. True to its name, it's got spots (more like polka dots) everywhere. On the walls, on the cups, on the plates, and also on the cupcakes. My friend Tamar and I had a small bite to eat there and then got right down to tasting. We tried two cupcakes. Here are the results of Day 2 of Cupcake Week at the Tasty Show:

Bakery: The Spotted Apron

Cupcake 1: Classic white with chocolate butter cream frosting
Cupcake 2: Red velvet with vanilla mascarpone frosting

Price: $2.85 and $3.35, respectively

Accompanying Friend: Tamar

Presentation: Retro Classic. Each cupcake has it's own rendition of the dots theme of the bakery.

Cake: The cupcakes were served cool. The classic white was dense, a bit dry for my taste, and quite sweet. It reminded both of us of birthday cupcakes from grade school. The nice girls behind the counter explained that the texture of the classic white came from the use of cake flour and egg whites (no yolk), putting it somewhere in the general realm of angel food cake. The red velvet (The Spotted Apron's best seller) was totally different - it's made with buttermilk (rather than just regular milk), and was spongier and much more moist. The red velvet cake was also a bit bitter - utterly different than the classic white (which was classically sweet), making for a wholly different cupcake experience. I liked the bitterness of it though I think it would have fared better if it was sweeter. Tamar much preferred the classic white.

Frosting: The classic white's chocolate butter cream frosting was sugary and stiff in a way that it cracks a bit when you bite into it, also bringing back pleasant memories of grade school cupcakes. It was topped with colored fondant discs. The vanilla mascarpone frosting on the red velvet cupcake was, again, wholly different. It was cool and mildly sweet, slightly tangy and very soft and smooth throughout. It was topped with Valrhona chocolate dots. Both Tamar and I agreed that the mascarpone frosting interacts extremely well with the bitter sweetness of the red velvet cake.

Overall experience: Tamar liked the classic white the best out of the two we tried. The frosting was perfect, and the whole experience reminded her of eating homemade birthday cake. She said that the only thing that could have been better was the texture of the cake itself - she liked the moistness of the red velvet better (but wasn't so into the bitter flavor and thought the mascarpone frosting was a bit too creamy). I was more into the red velvet. The combination of the mildly bitter sweetness of the cake and the cheese frosting was delicious, and the lighter texture and higher level of moisture was huge for me - though without the frosting, the cake alone was too bitter for me as well. But the classic white was definitely a little too heavy for my taste.

The classic white is just that - classic. It's sweet, home-style, and nostalgic, and evokes sweet memories of childhood birthday parties. The red velvet is the opposite. It's ultra smooth but not ultra sweet, and more on the sensual side. I could almost call it an adult cupcake. They were both medium good, but not spectacular in any way.

Click here to see the 5-day plan and read the original Cupcake Week post.

Yesterday I decided to designate this coming week as Cupcake Week at The Tasty Show. And then as I was mulling it over this morning, and also thinking how going out for cupcakes would be a great way to reconnect with friends that I haven't seen in a while, my friend Tamar (one of my favorite people who I haven't seen in forever) called to see if we could meet this week. So she pretty much sealed the deal.

Each day for the next week, I will visit a different cupcake bakery. There are so many places I want to go, I've been agonizing over which to include all afternoon. After much deliberation, this is my 5-day plan:

Monday
Flour Bakery & Cafe: 1595 Washington Street in Boston's South End

Tuesday
The Spotted Apron: 326 Cambridge Street in Beacon Hill, Boston

Wednesday
Sweet Tooth: 371 West Broadway in South Boston

Thursday
South End Buttery: 314 Shawmut Avenue in Boston's South End.

Friday
Beantown Cupcakes: 7 Somerset Avenue in Winthrop, MA

Last night I was at The Butcher Shop in Boston's South End. I was hoping to order some wine and something sweet, but we got there just after the kitchen was closed, so I had to settle for wine by itself. To get my sweet fix, I ordered a tasting flight of three Banyuls dessert wines. Banyuls dessert wines are produced in the appellation of Banyuls in the Pyrenees region of Southwestern France.

2004 Banyuls Domaine du Traginer Rimage: Deep purple red color, dark berry aromas. Flavors of blackberry and blueberry with undertones of cocoa and licorice.

2001 Banyuls Traginer Blanc: Medium amber color. Aroma and flavor of apricot. Undertones of vanilla, mango. Light and buttery.

1999 Banyuls Rimage Mise Tardive: The lightest aroma of the flight. Reminiscent of port. Flavors of spice, honey, and molasses. Earthy undertones.

Chocolate TV :: The yummiest of yummy hot and cold drinkable chocolate. Dana talks with the folks at Burdick's Chocolates in this clip from her latest VIP segment.